the infrastructure to support that. before making a move like that. the backlash from that would be too severe. and the thing i have been saying, if we want to be able to heat our homes right now. then we cannot exclude russia from swift so quickly. general, i want to ask you more about the idea of ukraine fighting this on their own. i want to put up a map of the nato alliance. ukraine is surrounded by nato countries. nato countries are by treaty compelled to defend each other. but no one is compelled by treaty to defend ukraine. well no question neither european union or nato member. it does have a considerable self-defense capability, i quarter of 1 million troops, a lot of reserves. we have invested in equipping them. not very sophisticated, almost no air force, no air defense, not a lot of mobile units. and their military has fought
will not get ahead of decisions and options that the president is going to consider. so i don t want you to read more or listen to that, louis, i m not trying to signal that something is in the offering. back to my answer to tom, we provided tens of millions of dollars in the last year, less than a year to assist ukraine in self-defense capability. as the secretary himself said, we will constantly review that and look at that and make whatever appropriate recommendations going forward. but i will not get ahead of the president or the administration on this. and then on your second question about the intercepts come i did see some comments made by russian authorities about an intercept. and i think you probably saw the european command has already addressed this, this particular incident they were talking about had to do with risk to a
of our views. so are you sayings that the united states would come to taiwan s defense. yes. if they are attacked. yes we have a commitment to do that. president biden is deeply committed to the taiwan relations act. the united states will continue to assist taiwan in maintaining sufficient self-defense capability. there is no change in a policy. bret: essentially had to walk that back. and then you have the word game played out. the washington post. the united states has very few credible options to respond if china were to seize a set of islands administered by taiwan in the south china sea under scoring the need for washington and taipei to build deterrence against limited chinese aggression according to the results of a war game conducted recently by foreign policy experts in washington and the asia pacific region standoff spotlighted the challenge commanders would face responding to incursion of the islands without provoking full blown war that walk back was essent
no one is above the law and so we intend to move quickly. now, mainland china says military exercises in the taiwan str strait are necessary to, quote, defend national sovereignty. this comes amid tensions between beijing and taipei and they call the actions toward taiwan destabilizing. we do remain concerned by the prc s provocative military activity. we are your honoring beijing to cease this military diplomatic and economic pressure in the coercion against taiwan. we have an abiding interest in peace and stability across the taiwan strait and that is why we ll continue to assist taiwan in maintaining sufficient self-defense capability. cnn s will ripley is following developments and has more on the strained relations between mainland china and taiwan. reporter: worse for worse, the head of the one party state, china s president saying a
stability abiding interest in peace and stability across the taiwan strait. that s stability across the taiwan strait. that s why stability across the taiwan strait. that s why we ll continue to assist in taiwan that s why we ll continue to assist in taiwan and maintaining a sufficient in taiwan and maintaining a sufficient self defense capability. china sufficient self defense capability. china has sufficient self defense capability. china has told the us in response to that that engaging in taiwan independence is a dead end. it goes on, china will take all steps needed and firmly smash and he taiwan independence plots. china has issued this one before coming make is a military spokesperson speaking last year. translation: yean translation: ., , , ., , translation: china is firmly opposed to an form translation: china is firmly opposed to any form of translation: china is firmly opposed to any form of official translation: china is firmly opposed to any form of official